Happy 25th Anniversary to Digital Underground’s fifth studio album Who Got The Gravy?, originally released September 8, 1998.
Things moved fast in the 1990s when it came to hip-hop. Digital Underground, the Bay Area-based collective, started the decade on top of the world, selling millions of records and shifting the musical landscape of the genre. Three years later, Tommy Boy Records ended their contract. A few years after that, the group was hopping from label to label, still making quality music, but trying to reconnect with a larger audience.
Which is a shame, because their oft-forgotten Who Got The Gravy? stands tall when compared to the albums from their heyday. Released 25 years ago, the project showcased some of the group’s talents in ways that the listener had yet to witness. Led by the late Gregory “Shock G” Jacobs, Digital Underground released some of the most creative music of their career with their fifth full-length, fully re-embracing the love of fun and sex that characterizes their earliest releases, while adding in some more crucial ingredients.
Digital Underground had released Future Rhythm (1996) through Critique Records, and then signed with the Jake Records imprint after lackluster sales. Jake was a small label run in part by Gary Katz, a former producer for Steely Dan, who, according to Shock in an interview with Vibe, had met the Digital Underground architect through Afeni Shakur. It seemed like an unlikely landing spot for the crew, but Katz gave them the artistic freedom that they were looking for.
Digital Underground always developed a large stable of talent, as their lineup invariably shifted from album to album. Of course, Shock G/Humpty Hump are central players throughout Who Got The Gravy?, along with Digital Underground O.G. Money B and Clee, who started working in the group in the mid 1990s. For this album, they brought in on-the-rise emcees like Mystik and Esinchill, as well as newcomers like John Doe, Styles (not Styles P), Whateva, Gruve, and Black Ty, few of whom were heard from after this album.
Though George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would always be Digital Underground’s main inspirations, Shock G decided to take the group in more diverse musical directions. Future Rhythm (1996) sounded different than the group’s previous releases, but the album’s sound was still largely rooted in funk. With Who Got The Gravy?, Shock G and the D-Flow Production Squad incorporated an even wider range of musical styles and genres into the soundscape for the project. Shock G even adopted a new production nom-de-plume/alias, Shakeem Bocaj the V, to indicate his broader approach behind the boards.
Bocaj/Shock G’s experimentation is apparent throughout Who Got The Gravy? Digital Underground try something different with “Holla Holiday,” creating a unique take on trunk-rattling jeep music through their artistic filters. The group samples the drums and vocals from Public Enemy’s “Miuzi Weighs a Ton,” blending them with synths, funky guitar, and vocoder effects to give the song a feel of something spawned from the mind of Roger Troutman. Shock G trades off rhymes with alter-ego Humpty, celebrating their success. “Shine the lights, this is Harlem Nights, true,” Humpty raps. “Digital U and Papa Hump’s bringing that slump you can bump to, boo.”
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Humpty Hump gets his showcase on the exuberant and energetic “Wind Me Up.” E. Ellington Humphrey III channels a pair of Digital Underground’s longtime spirit animals, George Clinton and William “Bootsy” Collins. In full rock star mode, he delivers an impassioned performance, backed by live keys and an apt sample from Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s “Bootzilla.” The only strange decision was for the group to frame the song as a “live” performance at the fictitious Blue Diamond club, when everything about the track screams Stadium Status funk. It’s the type of song that could have really used some major label support, because as a fun endeavor, it really should have resonated with a larger audience.
One noted difference between Who Got The Gravy? and other Digital Underground releases is the collaborators that the group enlist. Past Digital Underground albums mostly featured artists from within their own expansive family. For Who Got The Gravy?, however, Shock G brings in a trio of established and often legendary East Coast emcees.
“The Mission” features an out-of-leftfield team-up between “Afro-rocking, neck-dropping Westside type” Shock G and “East rock a vest put you to rest type” Big Pun. The pair bond over a mutual interest: the pursuit of the opposite sex. Each describe their freaky escapades over a soulful track that incorporates portions of Barry White’s “Playing Your Game.”
“The Odd Couple” is an underrated adversarial hip-hop track. It delivers a collaboration between Humpty Hump and Biz Markie, a pairing that made so much sense that it’s a wonder why it took until 1998 to happen. The song becomes a goofy extension of the East vs. West war, as the two argue over coastal dominance. The track’s first half is especially fun, with the duo continuously ragging on each other: Biz tells Humpty that “your nose is a two-car garage,” while Hump accuses Biz’s sister of “having sex with Gomer Pyle.”
According to Shock G’s interview with Vibe, KRS-One recorded a lot of material for Who Got The Gravy?, but the group whittled it down to a pair of appearances that book-ended the album. The Blast Master delivers some freestyle-type raps on the introductory “I Shall Return,” rhyming over some chaotic early ’90s-esque Digital Underground production. He also closes the proceedings by teaming with Shock on “Cyber Teeth Tiger,” a re-interpretation of the Undisputed Truth’s “Smiling Faces Sometimes.” While Shock G lists the type of smiles one encounters on the streets, KRS describes the nature and behaviors of back-stabbers and phony individuals. “Now, the cheek, give a hug,” he raps, “Snug, no grudge, ’til you turn your back and learn the facts / It’s called learn the truth / The tree is only known by its fruits.”
“Blind Mice” is Digital Underground’s version of Ice Cube’s “Gangsta Fairytale,” except with the song being played for tragedy rather than comedy. Members of the crew describe the lives of nursery rhyme characters that live in abject poverty, scraping to survive by whatever means necessary, “trying to figure out the meaning of it all.”
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Who Got The Gravy? also marked the return of Digital Underground’s sex-driven material. Future Rhythm was a largely sexless album, possibly due to marital problems Shock was having at the time. He makes up for lost time here, infusing eroticism into some of the album’s best tracks.
“Man’s Girl” is a massive musical undertaking, lasting over eight minutes (and more than 11 minutes if you count the “Peanut Hakeem” prelude). Shock G creates an R&B-influenced track, utilizing layers of lush keys, synthesizers, percussion, and piano. Shock G, Money B, and Gruve dedicate the song to a woman who isn’t a “fast-tracking, skank-gaming tramp,” but instead someone who’s “sex appeal drapes her whole vicinity.” It’s a distinction that’s not particularly enlightened 25 years later.
“April Showers” is Digital Underground’s sexiest endeavor since “Freaks Of The Industry” from Sex Packets (1990). An ode to physical intimacy, Shock G, Money B, and rapper Mystik all get as freaky as possible without actually cursing, an art that the group had perfected like few others. Shock both sings and delivers a spoken word-esque soliloquy fitting for the sultry track, which could have been easily lifted from a Prince song. Shock incorporates slowed down vocals/moans from Fatback Band’s “Put Your Love In My Tender Care” and elements from The Dramatics’ “In The Rain,” to accompany his delicate work on the piano.
Despite the album’s quality, Who Got The Gravy? was not a commercial success. According to the Vibe interview, this led to Shock G believing that this would be Digital Underground’s final album, as he thought that hip-hop fans had moved on to the Jay-Z’s of the world. The group took an extended hiatus, with Shock releasing his Fear Of A Mixed Planet (2004) solo album and focusing on production and supporting other acts musically. The group stuck around with Jake Records, eventually releasing a pair of albums in the late ’00s before calling it quits, ceasing to record new music as a group.
Who Got The Gravy? showed Digital Underground still had a lot of spices on their rack and a variety of flavors to add to hip-hop music. It’s a real shame that this project didn’t get more shine during the late 1990s, as the mainstream was filled with albums that were prepared the same way, often blander than they really should have been. Without Digital Underground in the mix, rap music was definitely losing recipes.
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